“Why does Wix happen to good people?” a Redditor laments in a thread asking, “Is Wix good for SEO?”
If you’ve ever asked the same question, let me share a story with you.
Between 2023 and 2024, I worked with a client who managed not one, but two websites built on Wix. One of them was brand new, so I was brought in to handle the SEO groundwork. From day one, the web developer kept pointing out just how limiting Wix was from a web development standpoint.
I should’ve taken that as a warning.
At the time, my Search Engine Optimization experience was rooted in platforms like WordPress and Squarespace—both of which have their quirks, but are generally regarded as SEO-friendly. I thought, “Surely, with the right strategy and expertise, any Content Management System, or CMS, can be optimized for search engines.”
I was sorely mistaken!
What I ran into was a mess of technical problems and SEO challenges that made even the easiest tasks feel almost impossible.
The most frustrating part? My client had already spent a lot of money on the project, but to get the results they wanted, they’d have to spend even more—just to achieve what’s much easier to do on WordPress or other platforms.
So, I started digging and found out I’m not the only one who’s dealt with this.
Before you get stuck in the same situation, this blog post will share some key insights to help you avoid feeling stranded before it’s too late.
Why is Wix not good for SEO?
To fully understand if Wix is in fact good for SEO, we must first understand how SEO works. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is important for your website especially if you want to be seen online in today’s highly competitive market.
Having a website with good SEO depends on many different factors. There’s crawlability, indexing, site speed, customizability, and the site’s built-in SEO capabilities.
If you’re new to the SEO world, that’s absolutely fine! We’re going to tackle every single one of these aspects and identify where and how Wix falls flat in achieving these.
Crawlability and indexing
Ever wondered why your page is not being seen on Google? Despite all the blood, sweat, and tears, your site isn’t just popping up like you wanted. Perhaps, your site is struggling with these two foundations of SEO: crawlability and indexing.
Search engines have bots called crawlers or spiders which access and navigate through the content of websites. Crawlability then refers to how easy or difficult it is for these bots and spiders to “crawl” your website’s pages and content.
If a site is easy to navigate and accessible, then it multiplies the chances of search engines like Google to see your website.
Crawlability is not only limited to search engines accessing your website, it’s also related to your reader’s user experience. Improving your site’s crawlability not only improves your visibility but also makes it easier and more pleasing for your target audiences to find and explore content on your website.
A website must be first crawlable because indexing directly follows it. Once a search engine bot has crawled a webpage, it will then analyze the content and store it in its index. This process involves checking your site’s content, keywords, and metadata.
Imagine a huge library with books arranged neatly on every shelf, ready to be borrowed or read. That’s what an index looks like. It’s a massive database of all discovered web pages on the internet.
The crucial thing here is this: only those webpages that are indexed will appear on the search engine results. So, no matter what you put in your website, if it’s not crawlable then it will never be indexed.
You’d guess that Wix indexes your pages easily and automatically, especially with how they market themselves. In my opinion, that’s not always the case.
So, why is Wix not recommended for SEO?
For the two Wix websites I maintained, I had to individually request indexing on almost all of their pages. Not only was this time-consuming, but it was also completely unnecessary work. It added hours of manual labor that should be automatic for Content Management Systems with capable SEO features, like Squarespace or WordPress.
Page speed is slower than the standard
There’s always a need for speed when it comes to SEO. This has been a proven fact ever since the introduction of Core Web Vitals which is all related to Google’s ranking algorithm. Websites that load faster are prioritized in search results because they provide better user experience. Who’d even want to stare at an empty screen for more than 5 seconds, right?
Also, fast page speed allows users to access your content quickly. Research says that if a page loads longer than 3 seconds, 25% of users are most likely to leave the page altogether, according to Flowmatters.
If your website page loads slowly, this will also lead to higher bounce rates which is the percentage of visitors that leave a webpage without engaging with your content. This engagement might be in the form of clicking a link, checking other pages, or purchasing an item. Higher bounce rates then negatively affect your website’s dwell time which tracks how long a person spends on a webpage before deciding to go back to the search results where they saw the website from.
It’s important to increase your website’s dwell time because it’s one of the metrics search engines consider when ranking pages. A high bounce rate and low dwell time will signal search engines that a website’s content might be irrelevant or not engaging.
Page speed also affects your website’s crawlability and indexing. Faster sites allow search engine crawlers to navigate smoothly, which leads to more efficient indexing. As mentioned earlier, only those websites and content that are indexed can be seen in search engines.
So, how does Wix perform in terms of page speed?
Unfortunately, Wix performs lower than the ideal. In a research made by Seobility, their Wix test site scored 13.9 seconds which is considered particularly poor.
The reason for this is that Wix creates tons of unnecessary scripts, which are specific kinds of code that automate tasks on a website or program, that ultimately slow down a website.
Unlike more flexible CMS options which provide a wide range of speed optimization techniques, Wix makes it difficult to do so. Many of these scripts are part of Wix’s core and that’s it.
You can be a Wix SEO expert if you want to but you can’t do much about it—except switch to a more capable CMS.
Website design customizability
Establishing your brand is one of your topmost priorities as a small business owner. You might have spent sleepless nights just to come up with the best colors, fonts, and designs for your brand.
So, is Wix good for SEO and site customization? Nope, in my opinion… Consider all of your hard work in deep peril when you decide to use Wix to build your site.
Wix boasts of its drag-and-drop feature, which is highly attractive to new business owners. This feature is a double-edged sword. The drag-and-drop feature relies on a grid-based system which restricts users from putting elements where they want them to be.
Also, drag-and-drop is a problem for seasoned web developers, should you consider hiring one for your brand. While Wix allows for some customization, it may not provide the level of flexibility and control over code that seasoned developers prefer—this truly is one of the downsides of Wix.
Personalization is a huge factor in marketing and SEO. When your website fully reflects your brand, you can reach out and relate better to your target audiences. This attracts more traffic which can affect your website’s search engine ranking.
Limited advanced SEO controls
If you’re serious about SEO, Wix isn’t the platform for you. Wix lacks the necessary controls needed to make your site more SEO-friendly. One of its major pitfalls is the sitemap Wix makes for its users.
A sitemap is essentially a map of your entire website. It lists down the important pages so that search engine spiders can crawl and index them.
The issue is that Wix automatically generates a sitemap. You might think this is a good thing because it takes the task out of your hands. Not true at all! This actually hurts your brand in hindsight.
One Wix user complained that they couldn’t remove certain URLs that they didn’t want search engines to crawl. While Wix lets you hide pages you don’t want to be seen, these pages might still be seen in the sitemap, which isn’t a clean SEO approach.
In an effort to make things easier for their users, Wix introduced SEO Wiz which is a tool designed to guide users. While it looks promising, this tool is still limited. The recommendations SEO Wiz might give you are not tailored specifically to your needs. As a result, you might miss out on opportunities to optimize your content and have your website get higher search engine rankings.
Also, according to Ahrefs, Wix has the bad habit of generating cryptic codes for images which is not good for ranking on Google Images. It will also be an uphill battle editing these, especially if you’re planning to upload tons of images to your website.
So, can you get good SEO in Wix? Maybe, if you’re willing to invest a lot more than you would for other CMSs that can do it by default at a fraction of the cost. You’d be paying so much for so little in return. There are other CMS out there that are more flexible and have more advanced SEO controls.
Wix’s multilingual support
Another effective way to reach out to your target audience is to engage them in the language that you’re speaking. This adds authenticity to your brand which many audiences will appreciate.
Let’s say you’re a Spanish business owner who wants to cater not just to Spanish audiences but also to English and other countries, then your website must have multilingual support.
Unfortunately, this is not something that Wix can effectively provide.
Wix limits your ability to customize the dynamic URLs for different language versions of your website. Instead, what Wix does is add a language code to your website’s URL.
For example, if your site in English is “mysite.com/house/plans”, it wouldn’t be “mysite.com/casa/designios” in Spanish. Wix will make it into something like “mysite.com/spn/house/plans”.
Wix offers integration with Google Translate to bridge this gap. Although, you might not want to rely solely on this. We all know how inaccurate Google Translate can be, especially when grasping nuances in languages.
This becomes an additional problem for you because you have to make manual translations for your web pages—a daunting task, especially for starting business owners.
Is it worth it to try Wix in 2025?
All of these beg the million-dollar question: Is Wix good for SEO?
Honestly, in my professional opinion as an SEO specialist, no.
If you’re a small business owner who’d rather spend your waking time running your business rather than building a great website for your brand, then Wix is for you. With its drag-and-drop editing functions and simple SEO tools, you won’t even break a sweat creating a website.
But what’s the satisfaction in that?
In 2025, markets have become more competitive, and online presence is equivalent to having higher chances of gaining commercial success. Building an SEO-friendly website should be part of your business goals, and Wix might hold you back, preventing you from reaching your full potential.
Oh, and another thing! Wix is in the BDS or Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions. It is a non-violent movement calling for freedom, justice, and equality. So, you might want to choose a website builder that is on the right side of history.
Give your website the SEO boost it deserves
We understand the importance of search engine rankings and how they affect businesses’ visibility and success. That’s why at Marketing by Rocio, we provide quality SEO services to businesses that need them.
Whether you’re a current Wix user who wants to leave it to the past and move on to greener pastures or a business owner who’s looking for a good CMS to use, we’re right here for you.
Ready to see your site in search engines? Contact us today!
